Over the course of their thirty years of keeping tabs on him, the Federal Bureau of Investigation utilized a wide variety of tactics to monitor Linus Pauling and his activities. They kept track of his travel, saved references made to Pauling in the media, charted his participation in various groups and documented his appearances before different committees and government bodies. Perhaps one of their most intrusive methods however, was their use of informants and incriminating information provided by those who claimed to know him well.

Pauling’s friends and neighbors were questioned throughout the FBI’s long investigation, as were his colleagues and superiors at Caltech. Nearly every filed interview suggests that Pauling’s associates held a favorable opinion of his loyalty. And even though these FBI activities contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion, Pauling appears to have been surrounded by individuals who truly cared for his well-being. At least one of Pauling’s personal secretaries fit this description, in so much as she served as an impediment to the FBI’s information-gathering schemes, as revealed, in part, by a 1961 Bureau memo:

Pauling teaches no classes at CIT and is engaged in research work only… [substantial redaction] positive in his own mind that no one could approach Dr. Pauling’s secretary about him, without she advising Dr. Pauling forthwith. [redacted] that Pauling’s office and its effects are kept under lock and key at all times.

[redacted] unable to furnish the name of anyone with whom Dr. Pauling discusses his future plans, other than his secretary, as noted above…Efforts will continue to develop a reliable source concerning the travel plans of Pauling, and the Bureau will be advised in this regard.

While Pauling’s long history with the FBI is wrought with both peculiar observations and fastidious documentation of his political activities, the most influential and frequently referenced item in his case file undoubtedly is the 1950 accusation made against him by Louis Budenz.

A former Communist Party member and managing director of the Daily Worker, Budenz became an informant for the FBI in the late 1940s. In a book that he wrote as a staff-member at Fordham University, Budenz claimed to know the identity of 400 concealed communists in prominent professional positions across the United States. Budenz advised FBI personnel that Linus Pauling was one of the 400, lending substantial weight to the loyalty investigation which had been administered to him in 1948. In regard to Pauling, Budenz provided FBI agents with the following testimony:

Although I did not meet Professor Pauling personally, he was officially mentioned as a Communist in connection with the formation of the Independent Citizens’ Committee for the Arts, Sciences and Professions at the time that he was active in cooperating in its formation, which was in late 1943 or early 1944. Dr. Pauling had been referred to me before that as a Communist in official reports from Milton Howard, who was assigned to cooperate in infiltration of the scientists, and also in official reports from V.J Jerome and Eugene Dennis. Up until 1945 Jack Stachel officially stated to me that Dr. Pauling was an active Communist. He has been a member of many fronts and also cooperated in raising money on several occasions.

Pauling’s file is likewise filled with comprehensive documentation of his appearances before several government boards and committees. An FBI agent was in attendance at the 1950 California State Senate Committee on Education hearings where Pauling was questioned about his refusal to sign a loyalty oath – five pages of notes outline the agent’s perception of the proceedings and Pauling’s testimony. While the overview of Pauling’s appearance before the Committee on Education is unusually detailed, it is generally evenhanded, taking care to note Pauling’s personal perspective without adding much in the way of inflammatory comment:

Pauling stated that all Communists should not be in the same category. He stated that he did not believe that there was any danger of Communist infiltration into the educational system. He said that even though he knew he put himself in jeopardy, he refused to answer the question as to whether or not he was ever a member of the Communist Party… He reiterated that when the United States suppresses liberal thought it was suppressing a part of the total thought.

Pauling’s files also contain a great number of testimonies from hearings and legal proceedings, particularly in the form of transcripts from several of Pauling’s court cases. Notes regarding particular difficulties that he experienced with other official entities are frequently presented, as is extensive documentation of his travel arrangements.

While it is now possible for scholars to reconstruct Pauling’s travel schedule by using a combination of the public record as well as the receipts, tickets and bills that he kept in his own personal records, the FBI maintained its own considerable documentation of Pauling’s travel – both domestic and abroad – in exacting and even disturbing detail. That noted, much of the FBI material concerning Pauling’s travel is redacted, making it difficult to discern the full level of infiltration into his personal arrangements. The information that remains visible usually takes the form of a report sent to the FBI Director, with a statement akin to: “Will follow and report the return of Dr. and Mrs. Pauling from foreign travel on or about 1/15/64.”

The FBI files also contain transcripts and commentary from Pauling’s 1951 appearance before the Industrial Employment Review Board, as well as his testimony before the Hennings Sub-committee on Constitutional Rights. Unsurprisingly, the files likewise contain substantial content related to Pauling’s two 1960 appearances before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS). Extensive documentation demonstrates that members of the SISS maintained regular contact with FBI agents throughout the case that they built around Pauling, and updates were regularly fed to the Bureau. The updates were especially frequent in Spring 1958, when Chief Counsel Jules Sourwine and other staff members were determining whether or not Pauling would make a satisfactory target for the committee’s next investigation:

Jay [sic] Sourwine, while discussing other matters, stated that there has been considerable activity on the part of Dr. Linus Pauling to stop atomic bomb tests, etc. He stated they have considerable front material on Pauling and he was wondering if Pauling might not be a fertile subject for inquiry by the Internal Security Subcommittee. He stated that he would appreciate any advice we might give him along this line feeling that Pauling might have some definite Party connections. Sourwine is not asking for information concerning Pauling but simply our opinion as to whether he might be a good subject to call before the Subcommittee.

RECOMMENDATION:

It is suggested that the Domestic Intelligence Division give this matter consideration.

FBI data in hand, the committee was ready to move against Pauling as early as 1958, but unforeseen political concerns, which are also documented in Pauling’s case file, delayed the confrontation. After nearly a year-and-a-half (during which time the committee focused on harassing and hastening the dissolution of SANE, a series of local but interconnected anti-bomb groups) Pauling was finally subpoenaed by SISS and questioned about his nuclear test ban petition. Pauling cooperated with the committee to some extent, but refused to provide information about those who had helped him collect petition signatures. Consequently, Pauling was commanded to appear at a second hearing before SISS later that year.

During the break that preceded his second appearance before their Committee, while Pauling was away on a pre-planned trip to Europe, SISS staff members were busy preparing material to use against him. In their ensuing efforts to weaken Pauling’s alternatives and strengthen their own general case, SISS staff members maintained contact and kept consultation with the FBI:

Mr. Sourwine stated he is attempting to convince the committee that a hearing should be held in New York City prior to 9-15-60 for the purpose of calling to such hearing several persons favorable to Pauling who could be expected to plead the Fifth Amendment. It is Sourwine’s view that with this testimony on the record, the committee’s position against Pauling would be stronger on 9-15-60 when he reappears.

Mr. Sourwine said he would keep us advised.

The final hearing with SISS ended well for Pauling. However the SISS case file, hearing transcript and a substantial amount of arguably relevant material was sequestered in Pauling’s FBI case file for future use. The information, pitched in a negative light, frequently resurfaced in Bureau reports throughout the following decade.

“Until Supreme Court of United States decides Pauling v. Eastland, Dodd and others pending before it, Dr. Pauling will not appear before your subcommittee and bring with him the documents ordered. Respectfully request that committee postpone hearing date until October 26 on assumption court will act on pending petition for writ of certiorari either October 17 or October 24. Your attention is called to fact that McClellan committee took similar action when similar case was pending in U.S. Supreme Court.”

– A. L. Wirin, Telegram to Senator Thomas J. Dodd, October 10, 1960.

The telegram excerpted above was sent from Linus Pauling’s counsel to Senator Dodd’s office the afternoon before Pauling’s hearing was set to take place. And, as might be expected, it was not well received.

Indeed, the action was apparently so insulting that Senator Dodd felt compelled to address the matter during his opening statement at Pauling’s hearing, which did in fact take place the following morning. According to Dodd, the move was a “deliberately contemptuous challenge to the authority of the Senate of the United States.” The telegram, as Dodd disdainfully related, was followed several hours later by a press conference where Pauling declared that he would not appear at the hearing as scheduled.

Similar complaints comprised a substantial portion of the senator’s opening statement, the sum of which was a general reprimand of Pauling and his counsel. The scolding, like much of the affair, seemed in tone and language to be directed not at Pauling and Wirin, but rather at the wider audience of the day’s events. In this vein, Dodd related in carefully scripted detail his reaction to Pauling and Wirin’s last ditch effort to delay the hearing. According to Dodd, he subpoena that Pauling received at his hotel the night before had resulted directly from this turn of events.

And so began Linus Pauling’s hearing, as scheduled at 10:35 AM, in the New Senate Office building on Tuesday, October 11, 1960. Present on the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee was Senator and chairman Thomas J. Dodd, chief counsel Jules G. Sourwine, director of research Benjamin Mandel and chief investigator Frank Schroeder. Other senators that had been present for Pauling’s June hearings were noticeably absent, and a recitation of Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska’s telegram, which apologized for his absence, was the first order of business for the day. From there, addressing the various media elements present, Dodd ordered that there was to be no recording of the proceedings and that only a two-minute time window for photos would be allowed.

After voicing his frustration with Pauling for the events immediately leading up to the hearing, Dodd made sure to clarify once again that Pauling was not on trial. According to Dodd, the purpose of the occasion was simply to “secure information, on the record, under oath, which will be helpful to the Congress in the discharge of its legislative duties.” Those present were meant to understand that the hearing was necessary for proper legislation. Dodd also took pains to address perceptions by some that the dispute with Pauling had somehow jeopardized the right to petition, sharing his opinion that the subcommittee had violated no rule of law. Imbued in the atmosphere of the day, however, was the threat of a contempt of Congress charge, an offense that could lead to imprisonment should Pauling fail to comply with each of the subcommittee’s requests.

Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1960

After reading a part of his drafted opening statement, Dodd suggested that he not finish, but instead insert the full opening statement into the official record following the testimony. After a few objections and some discussion, Pauling and Wirin accepted the action and the proceedings were allowed to continue.

Chief counsel Jules Sourwine then introduced a number of pleadings which were ordered into the appendix of the official record. Afterward, Dodd and Pauling discussed turning over the bound signatures from the United Nations bomb test petition for photostatic copying, and agreed to have them added to the hearing record.

Once these details had been cleared up, Dodd finally came to the question that everyone had been waiting for: Had Pauling brought with him all letters of transmittal? Would he provide the subcommittee with the names of those who had helped him to compiled the petition?

After a series of comments, wherein Pauling requested assurance that he would have a chance to clarify his decision and respond to the remarks of Dodd’s opening statement, he answered Dodd’s long awaited question.

I have not brought with me the documents, namely, ‘the letters of transmittal by which or in connection with which such signatures were transported to you or received by you,’ for the reasons that I presented in detail at my hearing on the 21st of June, when I was asked if I would tell the subcommittee who had gathered the signatures, and how many signatures each person had gathered. And I replied that I would not do this because I was unwilling to subject people who are innocent of any wrongdoing to the reprisals of this subcommittee, that my conscience would not permit me to sacrifice these innocent people, some of whom had been without doubt led into this activity by their respect for me, in order to protect myself.

Pauling had reacted with defiance, despite the common perception that doing so could lead to his imprisonment. The brave response brought to an end months of suspenseful speculation. And after a brief pause, Dodd simply replied… “very well.”

For much of the remainder of the hearing – which extended into the afternoon past a lunch break – chief counsel Sourwine took control of the proceedings. In so doing, Sourwine meticulously questioned Pauling about his association with thirty-four organizations and twenty-five individuals that had come under the suspicion of the subcommittee. Pauling replied to most inquiries with characteristic wit and humor, and Dodd was often forced to gavel down the frequent bouts of laughter that resulted from Pauling’s answers. Though the hearing was by most measurements stern and rather grim, one gains the impression that Pauling was enjoying himself at least a little bit during his testimony, perhaps relieved that Dodd had blinked on the issue of Congressional contempt.

Sourwine’s interrogation continued until the very last minutes of the hearing. The final line of questioning was directed at Pauling’s involvement with the Pugwash conferences, which like most individuals and organizations mentioned during the proceedings, was accused of acting as a tool of propaganda and suffering from undue communist influence. Pauling was given a chance to address these final suggestions before the hearing was ended, quite suddenly, after Sourwine stated that he had no more questions for the witness. After roughly six and a half hours, Linus Pauling was officially excused from his subpoena and the subcommittee was adjourned.

The merit of the October hearing is brought greatly into question by a simple comparison of the purported purpose and final results. By most measures, the subcommittee failed to produce any new or relevant information for its own use during its questioning of Pauling. Instead, the hearing seems to have been used to let the press and others know what the subcommittee found out about Pauling contacts and associations during months spent dredging through his past. It likewise appears that Dodd understood well before the trial that public sentiment and media exposure would not allow him to charge Pauling with contempt. But Dodd was loath to let Pauling escape unscathed, and as a result the hearing proceeded as scheduled.

So Pauling stood up to the committee, refused to release information he felt in appropriate, and escaped a contempt charge. But what of other damages to his reputation in the public sphere? According to Harry Kalven, Jr., a law professor from the University of Chicago who researched aspects of the case extensively, the results of the day, in regard to Pauling’s alleged communist affiliation, were not so damaging as might have been supposed.

What emerges then as ‘his long record of service to Communist causes’ is that he favors repeal of the Smith and McCarran Acts; that he has doubts about the justice in the Rosenberg and Sobell cases; that he did not like the deportation of Hans Eisler or David Hyun, a Korean about whom he makes a particularly effective statement; that he favored abolition of the Attorney General’s list; that he protested the treatment of the Hollywood Ten before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948; that he opposed the contempt citations against defense counsel in the Communist trials and the proceedings against the Jefferson School under the McCarran Act; that he thought the Hollywood Committee on Arts, Sciences, and Professions in which he, along with Mrs. Roosevelt, was active around 1948 was a useful idea; and that he has a deep concern about world peace which leads him to participate in many movements for it.

In other words, the red-baiters had precious little to add to their dossier. From Pauling’s perspective, after months of planning, stress and legal maneuvering, the hearing went about as well as could have been imagined.

[Ed. Note: October 11, 2010 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Linus Pauling’s final appearance before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. This is post 1 of 3 recounting Pauling’s autumn SISS ordeal. A five-part series examining Pauling’s June 1960 subcommittee appearances is available here.]

In June 1960 Linus Pauling was ordered to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) at the behest of then committee chairman, Senator Thomas J. Dodd. The hearing, which revolved primarily around the circulation of an international petition to the United Nations against nuclear testing, ended in a refusal by Pauling to answer several committee questions.

Pauling was ordered to appear again before the committee six weeks later on August 9th, and to bring with him a copy of all petition signatures. Pauling was also directed to bring all petition correspondence, as well as any documentation from respondents that had returned more than one signature. This second hearing was eventually moved to October, giving Pauling and his defense attorney, A. L. Wirin, time to review Pauling’s options and plan for their case. The extra time also gave Pauling a chance to fulfill obligations that he had assumed before his unanticipated summons.

Pauling departed for Europe with his wife Ava Helen shortly after his first engagement with the SISS. Though he was forced to shorten his trip because of complications associated with the upcoming hearing, he still managed to spend three weeks in England and Switzerland. The trip overseas promised a mix of recreation, professional visits and diplomatic endeavor, but a significant motivation for the journey was to attend the Tercentenary Celebration of the Royal Society.

Pauling flew to London on Thursday, July 14, after which he attended a number of lectures and receptions, visited Oxford and went to the Glyndebourne Opera in Sussex. He also gave several talks about his most recent experiences, but spent most of his time discussing international disarmament and world peace.

While in Europe, Pauling visited with ambassadors from Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States, including a forty-minute appointment with the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, James J. Wadsworth. According to notes recorded after the meeting, the ambassador was very supportive of Pauling’s work and with his unwillingness to turn over the names of people who had circulated petitions. Wadsworth also shared the opinion that the position framed in Pauling’s petition, when it was written three years earlier, was now official government policy. Wadsworth encouraged Pauling to continue working on the grassroots level, and also reassured him that no one in Washington could stand up against public opinion, a validation of Pauling’s pre-trial tactics to garner public support. The meetings, and the trip in general, seem to have lent Pauling comfort as he made his way back to Pasadena and the upcoming confrontation with Senator Dodd.

Notes by Linus Pauling recounting his meeting with Ambassador Wadsworth, July 1960.

Press coverage following Pauling’s first trial was largely sympathetic. In the months intervening between the June and October hearings, many more articles were published which mentioned the case generally and provided a neutral presentation of the facts. A majority of the print media content, however, came in the form of letters to the editor, editorials and opinion articles written from all over the country. While less prevalent, coverage of Pauling’s trials was not limited to the national level, and several news articles about Pauling’s confrontation with the SISS appeared in the international press, primarily in Europe.

The opinion articles written about the matter tended to take one of two positions – either framing Pauling as a supporter and contributor to communist causes, or as the victim of unscrupulous political prejudice. Norman Thomas, writing in the Post War World Council Newsletter, exemplified the first approach.

Dr. Linus C. Pauling has been subpoenaed to testify ‘on Communist participation in, or support of, a propaganda campaign against nuclear testing.’ The subpoena was issued by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. This gratuitous intrusion of a Senate committee is not born of any reasonable fear of Communist propaganda but rather of desire to stop any criticism of any resumption of nuclear tests. The committee might more usefully subpoena Dr. Edward Teller to ask him about self-interested corporation and military support of the continuation of testing.

On the other end of the spectrum were the likes of Fulton Lewis, Jr., who is excerpted here from the Washington Report.

Dr. Linus Pauling, Cal Tech professor who is ring leader in the big noise against further atomic tests, now being staged with a congressional committee deserves identification…. The professor’s record shows him to be one of the most prolific Communist front joiners in the business; the suspect petitions he has signed are almost uncountable.

Alongside his general travel engagements and mentions in the press, Pauling also gave a number of speeches and participated in several demonstrations while he awaited his hearing. On July 9, a couple weeks after his first appearance before the SISS, Pauling co-led a peace march with Ava Helen through downtown Los Angeles. When the march had reached its destination, Pauling addressed many of the topics that would characterize his speeches throughout the rest of the summer. He discussed the apocalyptic consequences of a nuclear war, the development of nuclear weapons and the need for international bomb-test agreements, as well as cooperation with the Soviet Union.

Pauling also continued to speak out about the dangers of fallout and the need for total nuclear disarmament. And he attempted to emphasize the relationship between peace and freedom, a topic made even more relevant by the impending circumstances of his battle with the SISS. Though the subject did not tend to overwhelm his general message, he took great care to mention his difficulties with Senator Dodd whenever the chance arose. When speaking of Dodd, the intensity of their association often showed through Pauling’s choice of words. During his speech after the march through downtown LA, Pauling criticized the “madness” and “evil” of Dodd’s pro-nuclear viewpoints.

Once the hearing was postponed to October, Pauling and Wirin attempted, unsuccessfully, to push the proceedings further back, to November. Thwarted in this effort and pressed for time, Pauling worked to address some of the committee’s pending requests. He directed Wirin to send committee counsel Jules Sourwine a list of the names and addresses that he had sent petitions to, as agreed, and took measures to consolidate all signatures contained in the petition for presentation. He furthermore had a book bound with 438 pages of names from U.S. petition signers and assembled all the signatures to be handed over for photostatic copying.

Pauling questioned the committee’s authority to demand signatures from other countries however, and spent some time discussing this aspect of the committee’s expectations with Wirin. He likewise harbored many similar concerns about the legitimacy of the committee’s authority regarding other requests, and began taking substantive legal measures to address them.

Pauling was planning to refuse a part of the committee’s request with finality, and understood well the potential consequences for the crime of contempt. He was determined therefore to resolve the matter before his scheduled appearance in October. He first sought a declaratory judgment from a federal District Court which would state that he need not submit to all of the committee’s demands. After losing the case, he appeared before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia which also ruled against him.

Numerous legal examinations following Pauling’s ordeal surmised that the decisions handed down against Pauling in both cases were likely not made because of their legal merit, but rather because the controversy between Pauling and Dodd had not become clear enough to permit adjudication. Pauling eventually appealed to the United States Supreme Court, but his case was pending up to the day of his appearance before the SISS. Though Pauling’s attempt to prevent his full hearing before the SISS was carried out with zeal, it appears that the courts had no desire to intervene in the matter before appropriate measures had been taken by all parties.

After months of maneuvering and preparation, Pauling arrived in Washington, D.C. in October several days before the start of his hearing. At 11 PM on October 10, the night before his scheduled SISS appearance, Pauling was served with a subpoena outside of the Congressional Hotel in Washington, D.C. The subpoena commanded Pauling to bring with him all signatures to the petition, and all letters by which such signatures were transmitted to, or received by him. With Abraham Wirin by his side and a bound list of petition signatures in hand, Pauling made ready the final preparations for his case.

Subpoena served to Linus Pauling the night before his October SISS hearing.

“It is well, therefore, to begin with the simple legal profile of what a Committee can and cannot do. All that it can do is to compel a witness to testify. If he talks, and talks honestly, that is the end of the matter. The Committee has no power to deal with him further; it is not adjudicating or determining any of his rights or duties; it is simply collecting information for legislative use. If a witness does not answer honestly, he may expose himself to a perjury prosecution; if he refuses to answer at all, he may expose himself to a contempt prosecution.”

–Harry Kalven, Jr., 1960

Linus Pauling was ordered to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) on June 20, 1960. He and his counsel arrived on time, as requested, at the New Senate Office Building in Washington DC, but the Senate was in session, and Pauling’s hearing was postponed until the following morning. Aside from the inconvenience of delay, Pauling was likewise, that day, notified for the first time that the hearing would be an executive session, and thus not open to the public or the press.

This meant that Pauling would not receive a copy of his testimony, and that the Subcommittee reserved the right to release portions of Pauling’s testimony to the public at their own discretion. The Subcommittee defended their decision by suggesting that “It is consistent practice…for the protection of its witnesses to hold executive sessions in advance of public hearing for the purpose of siting evidence, checking its accuracy and elimination of non-evidential material.”

Though the delay further aggravated his disposition, Pauling made good use of the extra time that was allotted to him, appearing before the press and giving several interviews. He also sent a telegram later that evening to Senator James O. Eastland, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, of which the SISS was a Subcommittee. Pauling voiced his concerns about the closed session, and requested that his hearing be open to the public.

When I appeared this morning as commanded I was surprised to learn for the first time that the session, postponed by you until 8 A.M. tomorrow, is to be an executive hearing closed to the public and the press. I do not like secrecy and I wish to present my testimony in public. I have nothing to say that needs to be kept secret and I neither require nor desire the protection of an executive hearing.

Pauling made it clear that the stated concerns of Senator Thomas J. Dodd and the Subcommittee for keeping the hearing closed – mainly to protect his Pauling’s rights as a witness – were unwarranted. His noisy protests of this decision were treated sympathetically in several prominent newspapers the following morning.

On June 21, after a few minutes of inquiry in executive session, Senator Dodd reversed the earlier decision and opened the hearing to the public. The first moments of the open session were nonetheless used by Dodd to once again justify his initial decision to hold an executive session. After defending himself satisfactorily, and explaining the rationale for Pauling’s presence before the Subcommittee, Dodd made a statement that clarified his fundamental intentions:

…while the particular objective of the session today is to learn what we can from this witness respecting communist activity in connection with protests against nuclear testing, we shall also seek other information respecting communist activity if it appears that such information might be available from this witness.

"Senate Paints Pauling Red -- Or Does It?" The Telegram, March 17, 1961. (Click for full article)

Having established the Subcommittee’s privilege to address the matter, Dodd briefly placated Pauling before moving on with his agenda. It is interesting to note that while the trial is commonly perceived as a battle between Pauling and Senator Dodd, it was Chief Counsel Jules Sourwine who conducted a majority of the questioning during the hearing, allowing Senator Dodd to play a peripheral yet authoritative role.

Chief Counsel Sourwine soon made it clear that the main topic of interest for the hearing was the nuclear test-ban petition that Pauling had submitted to the United Nations more than two years earlier. After reading aloud the press release which had preceded Pauling’s petition submission, Sourwine began asking about the signature collection process that Pauling had utilized in compiling the petitin. The Subcommittee had previously acquired a copy of the petition from the United Nations, and after determining that Pauling had not received each petition signer’s name on separate sheets of paper, Sourwine requested from Pauling the names of those individuals who had collected and turned in more than one signature.

After repeatedly avoiding a direct answer to the request, Pauling was finally forced to fully face the issue. Having cooperated with little reservation up to this point, Pauling politely but firmly refused the request, defending his decision as a matter of conscience and stating that

I feel some concern about my duty to the people who worked for this petition. I feel concern that they may be subpoenaed before this Subcommittee, subjected to the treatment that I have been subjected to.

Senator Dodd justified the request by mentioning discrepancies that his staff had encountered with names that Pauling claimed were on the petition as well as the number of signatures reported by a United Nations staff member. Following the hearing it was determined that responsibility for the error in reporting the total number of petition signatures resided with the U.N., but the allegations during the hearing still served to question Pauling’s penchant for truth.

The Subcommittee then addressed the formation of the petition, the sources of the petition’s funding, and the nature of the roles played by Russian and other international scientists. Chief Counsel Sourwine spent time during the morning hearing’s final portion to discuss Pauling’s questionable affiliations with suspected communists and communist fronts, including the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions and the organization that had printed the petitions.

Finally, as noon approached, Sourwine again requested both a list of individuals that the petition had been sent to and a list of the individuals who had delivered multiple signatures, with an indication of how many signatures were sent in. The hearing was recessed, and Pauling was given a chance to consult with his counsel, Abraham L. Wirin, about how to respond to the Subcommittee’s final requests.